On the morning of 5 August 1864, a flotilla of Union
warships was preparing to enter and attack Confederate naval and artillery defenses at
Mobile Bay, Alabama. Union ships, commanded by David G. Farragut, exchanged fire with Confederate shore cannon and
gunboats. To better see above the heavy gunsmoke, Farragut climbed into the rigging
of USS Hartford and was lashed to a shroud with a leadline to prevent falling to
the deck below. The first ship to enter the harbor struck a tethered mine (called a
torpedo in the 1860s), and sunk. The other ships cautiously slowed their advance. Farragut
asked, What is the trouble?

Shouted through a
trumpet was the reply Torpedoes!

Damn the
torpedoes! Farragut exclaimed, followed by either Full steam ahead! or
Full speed ahead! (Indeed, at least one source suggests his words were
Full sail ahead!) His ship then took the lead in steaming through the
minefield, sustaining damage from Confederate guns but none from torpedoes.
The Federal Navy then fought and defeated the Confederates at Mobile Bay, cutting off a
key Southern supply route.

Damn the
torpedoes! is often used, incorrectly, to precede a reckless or foolish charge into
the unknown. Farragut actually was taking a calculated risk. He had ordered a
reconnaissance of the harbor the night before, which found no torpedoes, concluded that if
any existed most of their firing mechanisms would be corroded by saltwater and rendered
harmless, and he knew too slow and cautious an advance would subject his ships to more
damaging fire. Hartford and several other Union vessels did strike mines, but all
of them failed to explode.

Although a native Tennessean, Farragut
remained with the Union and became the first Admiral in the United States Navy.

Sources: Bern
Anderson, By Sea and by River: A Naval History of the Civil War (New York: Da Capo
Press, 1962); US Library of Congress, Today in History,
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug23.html.